The Plaster Cast Collection

The ancient Romans practiced emulation (the Latin aemulatio) of great works of art as a means of surpassing their cultural predecessors, particularly with respect to the Greeks; the goal was not merely duplication of previous artistic achievements but rather the production of distinctly Roman monuments through the lively fusion of tradition and innovation. Roman architects, for example, often combined hallmarks of Greek and Etruscan buildings, creating astonishing architectural hybrids that served Roman political or religious purposes. Consistent with this ancient precedent of emulation, Culver’s collection of plaster casts, the acquisition of which has occupied my time for some twenty years, likewise provides my visual arts students the opportunity to inform their scholarly and artistic efforts through study and practice, as countless others have for many centuries.

Indeed, plaster casts have a long history as essential components of a visual arts education. In the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance in Europe, young artists often began their apprenticeships by copying from the work of the master. After many months or perhaps years of drawing in this way, the apprentice acquired fundamental skills and knowledge prior to more challenging instruction. In later centuries, the guild approach evolved into a more formal program of study with the rise of academies of art. By the nineteenth century in Europe and the United States, official academic training had fully codified the expectations of a thorough education in the visual arts. Though a relic of the past, the old guild system continued to influence the training of art students, who first copied from the drawings or paintings of established masters prior to working from plaster casts of exemplary sculptures. When a student had achieved an appropriate level of skill and knowledge, he or she then proceeded to draw, paint, or sculpt the live model.

These art academies thus retained some features of the old guild system by training young artists through discrete stages of development. By the mid-twentieth century, the prevalence of abstract art as a means of expression precipitated the decline of traditional methods of teaching; the use of plaster casts fell out of favor, resulting in the wholesale destruction of plaster cast collections at major museums and universities. In the unsettling aftermath of two catastrophic world wars, plaster casts became emblems of a dysfunctional European tradition and thus easy targets for progressive educators, who literally tossed into dumpsters the collections of plaster casts they inherited from their predecessors. Such cultural bloodletting has its uses, perhaps, but so has the impulse to reconcile old and new.

As an instructor of visual arts, my curricular intent blends the best practices of past and present by enabling the influence of Old Masters and modernists alike to peacefully co-exist in the same pedagogical context. Possessing enormous artistic integrity, Cezanne, Matisse, and Giacometti copied the work of the Old Masters throughout their lives, and they often drew and painted from plaster casts and figure sculpture.

As the Roman practice of emulation so vividly demonstrates, tradition and innovation need not always contradict each other, particularly when the objectives (such as rhythm and balance) remain constant. This seemingly contradictory approach to the making of art has governed the theory and practice of our most celebrated artists. In her essay “Contentione perfectus: Rembrandt and Annibale Carracci,” Stephanie S. Dickey points out that Rembrandt and his fellow Dutch artists collected the works of Renaissance masters to assimilate the achievements of their predecessors in Italy: “Dutch artists, like their Italian counterparts, combined observation of nature with respect for pictorial precedent to create a style that synthesized tradition and innovation.” Likewise, Pierre Bonnard, a 20th-century painter with tremendous modernist appeal, constructed his daringly original paintings with intentional references to ancient sculpture, establishing an unlikely rapport between his idiosyncratic color sensibility and the Greco-Roman figurative tradition. His Large Yellow Nude, for example, borrows the pose and proportions of the Medici Venus, a Roman copy from the first century A.D. of a lost Greek original. For artists as revolutionary and diverse as Rembrandt and Bonnard, then, the artistic achievements of the past remained a vital resource that informed their own, highly innovative methods and artistic production. The same applies to my students, or should apply, if I can get it right.

With the passage of time, plaster casts gradually shed their association with the conformity of the official academic style of 19th-century France. Today, they are highly coveted artifacts that invigorate the art-making process. Museums, universities, and art schools from New York City to China have lately reassessed the cultural and pedagogical value of plaster casts, which serve the teaching and learning objectives of a diverse group of teachers, students, and institutions.

Some plaster casts from the collection at Culver Academies

The School of Art, Benoit-Louis Prevost, after Charles-Nicolas Cochin, engraving, 1763

The engraving above from the eighteenth century concisely illustrates the stages of a classical visual-arts education. Note at the far left the youngest students copy from exemplary drawings with the guidance of an older student. In the center, young students who have learned their earlier lessons draw from a plaster cast of the figure while older, more experienced students again offer assistance. On the far right, the oldest students work independently from the live model, likely anticipating a subsequent critique from the master of the atelier. The implicit pedagogical model from this image is twofold: first, learning occurs within a continuum whereby initial efforts inform subsequent efforts as students overcome successive challenges through trial and error; second, the acquisition of skill and knowledge occurs most effectively within a collective of younger and older students who learn with and from one another. My efforts to construct Arcadia at Culver spring from this proven model of visual arts education, relying heavily on large- and small-scale reproductions of Old Masters’ drawings and paintings, plaster casts of sculptures from antiquity through the twentieth century, and of course the living model (when models are available). By virtue of their hard work within a highly intentional curricular structure, students in my classroom have the opportunity to accept and assimilate criticism, to renew their commitment to learning despite inevitable setbacks, and to ultimately enjoy the struggle to achieve by overcoming a sequence of art-making challenges. In this way, learning or, more accurately, teaching and learning may become central features of a happy life.

“a style that synthesized tradition and innovation”

“observation of nature with respect for pictorial tradition”

Visiting artist Alan Feltus teaching my students respect for pictorial tradition, Culver Academies, 2011

The painting Alan Feltus invented one afternoon while visiting Culver, 2011 (with an assist from my jacket, shirt, and tie that day)

My effort to sketch Alan while he rested after teaching my students, 2011

Students applying their understanding of history, literature, and art in Humanities Level 9 to determine how a cast from the Parthenon frieze and a passage from Sophocles’ Antigone reflect the same Athenian identification with the forces of order (cosmos) over disorder (chaos)